


To Do Lists and Protocol

by RunRabbitRun



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch Era, Character Study, Emotional Baggage, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Jesse is young and dumb and misses his Mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 00:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8182316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunRabbitRun/pseuds/RunRabbitRun
Summary: "The first thing they do after he says ‘Yes’ to CO Reyes and they get all the paperwork filed away is cut his hair."Or, Jesse McCree and the neverending list of Rules, Regrets, and Things That Need Doing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I know this has been done like a million times already. BUT, being the freak for mundane details that I am, I wanted something that detailed the actual process of Baby Jesse getting drafted into Blackwatch. Basically, I started wondering exactly how Jesse adapted to what was definitely a very different lifestyle than what he was used to. I imagine there was A LOT of paperwork involved on poor Gabriel's part. Lucky Jesse just had to deal with cutting his scruffy-ass hair cut and doing homework for the first time in a long while. Oh, and massive emotional trauma, but whatevs. 
> 
> This is unbeta'd so there are probably typos. I hope you enjoy it anyway. Thanks for reading!

The first thing they do after he says ‘Yes’ to CO Reyes and they get all the paperwork filed away is cut his hair.

(It’s actually not the _first_ first thing they do. The first thing they do is give him a full physical and psychological check-up, which is embarrassing enough to just-turned-seventeen Jesse that he promptly and deliberately forgets it.  At this point in his life he still prefers to think of himself as a _momentarily_ defeated but yet unvanquished Anti-Hero, not a scruffy kid with, apparently, a B-12 and iron deficiency and a new, meticulously detailed meal regime. They’d actually given him a jar of gummi multi-vitamins, the condescending fucks. They also gave him an orange bottle of anti-depressants, which he throws out.)

At any rate, when he thinks about it all some years down the line, the first thing he’ll recall about his initiation into his new life is the haircut. It’s traumatic, he complains to the stone-faced Reyes. It’s an affront to his culture, he whines. Jesus, he just got it back down to shoulder length! It had taken him ages (read: about 6 months) to grow it back out after a large chunk of it had gotten burnt off in a particularly wild barfight.

“Culture my ass,” Reyes sneers. “What culture? Fuckin’ jumped-up redneck thug culture? Shut your mouth.” He then turns to the officer brandishing a set of clippers and says with a dark grin: “Give him the Ivy League.”

“Just thank God you ain’t got lice, kiddo,” says the officer, slipping a toothy attachment onto the clippers. “If you did we’d have to cut it all off.”

It’s less than ten minutes worth of buzzing and the officer brusquely pushing Jesse to turn his head this way and that, but it feels longer as he watches his dark hair fall away in little whorls into his lap. He wants to cry real bad but he forces it back as he sweeps it all up and away while Reyes and the officer shoot the shit and ignore him. He always wants to cry when he gets furious. It’s fucking humiliating.

More humiliating is the second thing they do, which is snap a slim tracking cuff around his ankle. It’s not bulky like the ones he’s seen before, but it’s just weighty enough that he can’t forget about it.

“How am I supposed to wear my boots with this thing on?” he demands, sticking his fingers under the dull grey band and tugging futilely.

“Figure it out,” says Reyes, shooting a sharp look in his direction. “You’re gonna have it for the next ten months, I’m sure you’ll get used to it.”

“ _Ten months?!_ ” Jesse screeches, but Reyes is already up and pulling Jesse by the arm out the door of his office and down the hallway.

“Any complaining or delinquent shit and it’ll be eighteen, McCree.”

As Reyes outlines the rules on the way to the Quartermaster’s, it seems to Jesse even taking a piss without permission counts as ‘delinquent shit’. Clock in and out of barracks by 2100 and 0730, respectively. Follow the meal plan to the goddamn letter. Pass any and all random drug/uniform/bed checks _Or Else_. Absolutely no leaving the Watchpoint for three months solid, and after that absolutely no leaving the Watchpoint without Reyes’s authorization. Don’t even think about fucking with the tracker anklet. Keep his grades above a B average (“I have to go to _school_ , now? I have a GED, you know.” “A GED you barely got, according to your records. All your classes are online and if you fail to satisfy my expectations there will be hell to pay.”) The regs went on forever and, to top it all off, Jesse would report to Reyes himself every week.

Jesse sneers and bitches under his breath but otherwise keeps his mutinous thoughts to himself. The thing about Reyes is Jesse absolutely believes he could bring hell down on him. The thought of Reyes’s anger legitimately frightens Jesse, but not as much as prison does.

 _“You’d be tried as an adult, kid,”_ Reyes had growled, leaning over the interrogation room table and getting right up in Jesse’s face. _“I’m no lawyer but I can guarantee you’re looking at twenty years, minimum. Forty, more likely. That’s more’n a quarter of your natural life locked up in Max. I can make that all go away or I can make it happen right now, you got me?”_

Jesse had already made up his mind before Reyes finished threatening him.

The Quartermaster, a huge, stern woman who chats easily with Reyes while looking Jesse over like he’s some kind of weird bug, loads up a cardboard box for him with various essentials, including a keycard and a top-of-the-line tablet. Jesse’s old phone had been taken from him after he’d been arrested and his cracked old tablet was probably sitting in an evidence locker somewhere. His fingers practically itch for a touchscreen. He's dying to do a crossword, just to let his brain stop racing for a few minutes.

He's also dying for a smoke. He eyes Reyes’s pockets, searching for the telltale square bulge of a carton. Figures he comes up empty. The Quartermaster, though, she’s got a half-crushed pack on the shelf behind her desk. Jesse puts on his prettiest smile and sways his hips just a tad.

“Hey Miss, can I bum one?” he asks sweetly, leaning one lean, tan arm on her desk and making the universal two-finger smoking gesture with his free hand.

Reyes and the Quartermaster stop talking and stare at him for a few seconds like he’s gone and asked for something crazy, like blow or something. Then Reyes snorts and crosses his arms over his broad chest.

“What do you _think_ , McCree?” he asks, like Jesse’s an idiot. Jesse, for his part, starts to feel like one when the Quartermaster gives him a long, hard look.

“Absolutely not,” she says harshly. “You’re underage, for one thing. Plus, there’s no smoking inside the Watchpoint.”

“I ain’t underage _here_ ,” he says, refusing to let his honeyed drawl drop, ignoring the heat growing in his face.  “We’re in Switzerland, right? Ain’t the smoking age sixteen?”

“It _ain’t_ sixteen,” The Quartermaster snaps back. “It’s eighteen. Same for drinking.”

“Welcome to Cold Turkey, McCree,” Reyes says with another way-too-satisfied grin. “Now get your stuff, it’s almost your curfew.”

“Curfew,” Jesse snarls to himself. Like a fucking kid. Yeah, he was still minor in age but _come on_. He’d been arrested for running with one of the biggest, meanest crime syndicates in the US. He had a criminal record longer than his own lanky legs. Age was nothing but a number with those credentials.

He stops bitching, even to himself, when Reyes drops him off at his dorm. He’d been expecting a barrack; long rows of bunk beds, or at least a couple of roommates. This room is small, grey, and single-occupancy. It’s pretty bare, and the single narrow window has bars on the outside, but it’s definitely not a cell. There’s even a little ensuite bathroom. Jesse plops his box of stuff down on the narrow bed and just stops himself from plopping himself down with it.

Reyes has his new tablet and his tapping something into the glowing screen.

“I’m uploading your new itinerary on here, along with a map of the compound and some other info you’ll need. You swipe your keycard there,” he points to a slightly battered wall console next to the door, “To clock in and out. After curfew you _do not_ leave this room for anything short of an emergency or if I authorize it, got it? McCree, do you understand me?”

“Uh, yessir,” Jesse mumbles. The carpeted floor is worn in a pattern around the room, making a wonky Pi shape between the door, the bed, the desk, and the bathroom.

“Good. You won’t be seeing much of me until you report to my office on Friday, but if you don’t follow your itinerary or break curfew _I will know_. You’ll do as you’re told but ultimately you answer to me until you turn eighteen and we can officially draft you in. After that you still answer to me but it’ll be through the proper chain of command. Now,” he stuck the tablet under Jesse’s nose and he took it with numb fingers, “I suggest you study your schedule for tomorrow and settle in. And get some sleep, that’s an order. Don’t forget to clock in.”

“’Kay. Uh, yessir.”

Reyes looks at him for a long minute. Jesse feels a snappy comment, or maybe a scream, building up in his chest but it fizzles out when Reyes gives a sharp nod and says ‘Goodnight’ which sounds so weird coming from him, and then leaves.

The second the door clicks shut Jesse lets out a long, harsh breath and collapses onto the bed. The mattress is softer than he was expecting and he sinks right in, just laying there and breathing for a few minutes. The ceiling lamp has a smudge on its domed surface that kinda looks like a rabbit. After he’s pretty sure he can stand up without toppling right back over he fishes his keycard out of his box and wanders over to figure out the console on the wall. He’s not a real tech-y guy but it’s easy enough to work out. There’s a little speaker on the side that says ‘McCree, Jesse. May 30, 2056. Clocking in at 2033 hours.”

The cool, soothing voice of the AI is a little irritating. It’s the same kind of feeling Jesse gets when someone older than him says _‘Calm down, Jesse’_ when he’s obviously the calmest one in the room and everyone else is too stupid to see it. He clenches his fists and imagines punching a hole right through the drywall, but manages to cool it just in time. The stupid tracker anklet is digging into his calf a little and he doesn’t want to have to wear it any longer than he has to.

He takes to inspecting his new digs. Not much to see beyond the first look, except for an orb weaver that’s made a home in the corner of the window. Jesse leaves it be. The box of sundries is a little more interesting. He’s got a few sets of boring socks and underwear, sturdy cargo trousers, undershirts and button-ups, both stamped with the Overwatch logo, and even some soft workout clothes he can use as PJs. It’s all black and all a little big for him, but he’s put on another inch in the past two months alone. The idea that they’re giving him clothes he can grow into is weirdly comforting; maybe they’re not planning on dumping him in the nearest pit regardless of any shady deals made with Commander Reyes.

There’s some toiletries in there as well and he gathers it all up in his arms with the intention of taking a shower so long the base runs out of hot water. He’s grabs up the last towel and uncovers his wallet, sitting there at the bottom of the box like it was snuck in. Was it snuck in? It must have been, right? They took everything but the clothes off his back. Did Reyes keep it for him? He dumps his armful of shower stuff on the bed and snatches it, running his thumbs over the worn leather of its folds, tracing the brass Zia symbol set into the front. He flips it open, almost fumbling, and lets out a little sob, the very first since this whole debacle began about a week ago. His credit cards are gone, as is his cash, his driver’s license, and the condom he kept tucked away, but he doesn’t care. His pictures are still there. The old-fashioned wallet-sized prints of his family’s ranch house, one of his Mama holding baby Alyssa in her frilly white christening gown, and one of his friends Bobby, Javi, Jenny and himself all leaned up against the paddock fence, holding bottles of Mexican coke with Cody, his Mama’s old gelding, sniffing at Jesse’s hair.

Bobby was shot dead a little over a year after that photo was taken. Jenny’s family picked up and moved after that, wanting to get their kids away from Deadlock and the increasing Omnic unrest rocking even the little capital city of Santa Fe.

Jesse presses a knuckle between his front teeth as fat tears escape and roll down his cheeks. Javi had been caught up in the Overwatch sting too; he’d given Jesse a brief, hard kiss and one of his blinding smiles, and then ran off to help cut off the cops around the back of the warehouse they were holed up in. Jesse had been heading for the roof, retreating as the pigs blasted their way past the gang’s defenses, when he heard the gunfire and the screams. He’d frozen, just for a minute, and none other than Commander Gabriel Reyes had jumped him from behind.

Reyes wouldn’t tell him what happened to the others. He’d alluded to Deadlock being No More, that Jesse was all that was left, but he hadn’t said if that meant they were all dead or just all locked up. Maybe Javi was… Jesse can't complete the thought. He presses his forehead to his open wallet and cries, frantic and breathless.

“Son of a bitch,” he whimpers, “Fuckin’ son of a bitch. Javi, God, _Javi_ …” he gasps, trying to bring in some air but it all runs out in another rush of sobbing. If Javi had just come with him, if he’d gone with Javi, if he hadn’t stopped Javi from following him into Deadlock in the first place.

_“I **love** you, Jesse. I’m not gonna let you do this without me, asshole. We’re gonna make it big together, make some serious cash, yeah? Buy that big ol’ house up in the mountains, right?”_

_“Yeah, definitely,”_ Jesse had whispered, dazzled as always by Javi’s big ideas and that sweet smile, and kissed him with all the passion a fifteen-year-old idiot could muster.

So much for big ideas. Jesse’d make it big alright, basically property of uptight organization he’d never even heard of. It might have even seemed cool, once upon a time; like one of the brainless, bloody action movies he and Javi used to watch. Now all Jesse can see ahead of him was long, concrete hallways, endless drills, following orders. This was his life now. God, his Mama probably didn’t even know what had happened. She’d probably heard about the raid and assumed the worst. She was probably wondering why there was no body to claim. Wondering what she was going to tell Alyssa.

He presses his face into the photos one more time, squeezing his eyes shut to exorcise the last few burning tears. He’d stay just long enough to get the damn tracker off. He'd escape. Or maybe not he wouldn’t. Maybe this was all that was left for him. In any case, he’d stay so he could convince Reyes to let him call Mama, tell her he’s okay, even if he’s half a world away and basically a prisoner. He’d stay long enough for Reyes to tell him what happened to Javi so he could at least find out where he was buried. They kept track of those things, right?

Tracker, Mama, Javi. Not necessarily in that order.

He folds the wallet shut and places it carefully on his pillow. He could cry more later. In the meantime, he has to clean up and make himself look trustworthy. He has to call his mother. He has to find Javi, wherever he was. He has to stay alive so, maybe someday, he can go back to that rickety old ranch house.  


End file.
